Created between 1405 and 1408 or 1409, probably in Paris, the Belles Heures, or Beautiful Hours, a private devotional book, is one of the most sumptuous manuscripts to have come down to us from the Middle Ages. Commissioned by Jean de France, duc de Berry from the Limbourg brothers, the most gifted artists of their time, it is the only manuscript completed by them in its entirety. The richly illustrated text is enhanced by seven unprecedented picture cycles devoted to Christian figures or events that held special significance for the duke. Using a luminous palette, the artists blended an intimate Northern vision of nature with Italianate modes of figural articulation. The keen interest in the natural world and the naturalistic means of representing it, so striking in the 172 illuminations, foreshadow the work of Jan van Eyck and the ensuing generations of outstanding 15th-century painters in the South Netherlands.

Meiss, Millard. French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century and the Patronage of the Duke. Volume 2, Plates. London: Phaidon Press, 1967. fig. 261, 495-496, 518, 746, 776, 785.

Northrup, Marguerite, ed. The Easter story from the Gospels. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1967. fig. ill. pp. 14, 28.

Marrow, James H. Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: A Study of the Transformation of Sacred Metaphor into Descriptive Narrative. Kortrijk: Van Ghemmert Publishing Company, 1979. p. 161, fig. 115.

Kolve, V. A. "The Annunciation to Christine: Authorial Empowerment in The Book of the City of Ladies." In Iconography at the Crossroads: Papers from the Colloquium Sponsored by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University. Occasional Papers, Vol. 2. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. p. 179, fig. 5.

Mellinkoff, Ruth. Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages. Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. p. 81.

Mellinkoff, Ruth. Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages. Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. fig. III.95.

Husband, Timothy B. The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry. New York ; New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008. Descriptions of Texts and of Miniatures, pp. 80–263.

Barnet, Peter. "Medieval Europe." In Philippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1977–2008, edited by James R. Houghton. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009. p. 23.

Avril, François. "The Bibliophile and the Scholar: Count Paul Durrieu's List of Manuscripts Belonging to Baron Edmond de Rothschild." In The Medieval Book: Glosses From Friends and Colleagues of Christopher de Hamel, edited by James H. Marrow, Richard A. Linenthal, and William Noel. 't Goy-Houten: Hes & De Graaf, 2010. pp. 366, 372, 374 n. 23.